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Monday, June 25, 2012

Perils Facing Open Access to the Internet

Visualization of Internet Traffic

While I tend
to focus most of the blog’s content on freethinker issues and evolution, the mandate
I set for the site also includes review and updates concerning information
technology and the information society.Last week, the Associated Press (AP) posted an article entitled, “A Battle for Internet Freedom as UN Meeting Nears.”The crux of the article focuses on how very
private and very high-level negotiations are to be conducted which could add or
detract wording to international treaties which impact an individual’s right to
access, communicate and create content on the web.

Conversely,
this would give any nation the right, when it believes it is being threatened, to suppress dissent and negate the right to use the web freely for the purpose of
sharing information. The negotiations
are part of the World Conference on International Telecommunications.

Our Galaxy

While many UN representative nations have
vowed to block other members from adding language which would change the
governance of the Internet or allow individuals nations to create and insert
wording which would permit censorship, current negotiations appear to be in a
bit of diplomatic disarray.

Can you
imagine an “Arab Spring” without the Internet?
Or the countless use of social media to assist activists in sharing
information, creating opportunities to share ideas, or create flash mobs or
other protests to enliven debate and discovery?
It is scary to think that the Internet as we know it could, if we are
not vigilant, be changed in small and big ways which would inhibit an individual’s
free and open access to web-based information.
Needless to say, there are countries now which inhibit or censor access,
Communist (and former communist nations), non-democratic states and countries
that use religious law to surpress civil and human rights are high on the list
of these violators.

The article
sites the following:

“Russia, for example, has proposed language that requires member states
to ensure the public has unrestricted access and use of international
telecommunication services, except in cases where international telecommunication
services are used for the purpose of interfering in the internal affairs or
undermining the sovereignty, national security, territorial integrity and
public safety of other states, or to divulge information of a sensitive nature.”

Such an
amendment would allow for the immediate repression and suppression of not only
access and use of to the internet as a social change agent, but it would also
make it a crime to use the Web to share any information deemed by a state to
endanger the status quo of any nation. This means that state violence could continue,
economic and social disparity could be enforced, and most importantly the human
and civil right to think and speak one’s mind would be in danger.

The UN body
which oversees the negotiations works on a consensus basis. So it does not
allow any one nation to have veto power over other counties or final say
regarding the process of creating, debating, discarding or ratifying changes to
the ITC charter. Unlike the UN Security Council, this body must work together
to approve any and all changes to the international telecommunications document.

While the
meeting and resulting discussions remain private, academic and civil rights
organizations have asked for greater transparency in the process for updating
the charter, although these requests are really not being honored. In addition,
other groups who are charged with managing the web remain active and robust. So
the Internet Society, ICANN, and WWC, are and remain the three big players in
implementing web change, discovery and innovation.

The Internet
must remain an open and free modality to share and compare ideas, develop commerce,
enliven scholarship and education and serve as a platform to communicate and
express the global mindset and values of a world population of billions of
people in search of connecting to one another.
Never before in human civilization have there been both a need for and
the opportunity to create a worldwide conversation of humanistic goals and
objectives which liberate the spirit and enhance the values and choice of each
and every citizen.

If nothing else, be aware and informed that
changes to the Web can impact you in small and big ways which can be immediate,
long-term and everlasting. Finally, remember each an every citizen of the planet is covered by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This Article expressly affords everyone the right to access information via any media.